IRISH AUTHOR EOIN Colfer is to see his best-selling children’s book series Artemis Fowl turned into a life-action film – by Walt Disney Pictures, no less.

The renowned producer Harvey Weinstein, who is the founder of Miramax Films, is to team up with Walt Disney Pictures to make the film, it was announced today:

The collaboration is an interesting one for a number of reasons, not least because Disney and Weinstein stopped working together in 2005, following a dispute over the distribution of the Michael Moore film Fahrenheit 9/11.

Plus, Robert de Niro and Jane Rosenthal are the film’s executive producers.

Weinstein and Disney have put any differences aside to come together and adapt the best-selling book into a live-action movie, which the Hollywood Reporter says will be based on the first two installments in the Artemis Fowl series.

Harvey Weinstein Pic: AFF/AFF/EMPICS Entertainment

It also notes that the film rights to Artemis Fowl were bought by Miramax – which Weinstein left in 2005 – in 2001, but under an agreement Weinstein would be allowed to produce this specific film.

The film has a new screenplay from the man who wrote the screenplay for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, so it looks as though Artemis Fowl will see Colfer’s fame rise to stratospheric levels.

The book series has already sold more than 21 million copies worldwide.

In 2011, Fowl, a supervillian in the book series, ranked third in a Forbes list of richest fictional characters.

Read: Irish author Eoin Colfer pens Dr Who story>

Read: Irish supervillain Fowl ranks third in Forbes list of richest fictional characters>